I appeared to have strained (or is the technical term pulled?) a muscle in my stomach. Only lightly thankfully, but lunging now causes me some moderate discomfort, which is playing merry havoc with my nights. I have no idea how it occurred though. It arose with me on Wednesday morning, implying that it went awry overnight for it was fine Tuesday night. I know that I have a tendency to thrash about a bit while trying to kip, but I can’t imagine my doing anything strenuous enough to twang a muscle while actually unconcious. The night prior was sober, so no falls or plummets could have been responsible. I did consume a large chicken karai, which could have had some bearing on it. Not the curry itself, but the rice. I think I may have under cooked it slightly, so now have the worry that the rice has now expanded further in my stomach and ruptured it’s very lining with it’s paddy fueled fury. Perhaps I just carried something to heavy at work. Meh, it’s getting better anyway so I’ll stop whingeing and wait for the internal bleeding to start. Sleep well.

So I was getting out of this cab on Friday night an’ the door, yeah, the door swings out o’ my hand. Really loose hinges, cab in the gutter on a slope, my butterfingers, that sort of thing. And there’s this cock in a balaclava walking past, pissed up ‘n’ that, and he starts mouthing off, saying I could have smashed his ankle an’ shit. And I’m all like “Sorry mate,” nut he ain’t having it. Leans into the cab, gives me a slap. Knocks me spec’s flying. I’m all like “Hey!”, so’s the lass in the cab with me. I picks up me glasses, look back up ‘n’ the cunt’s already buggering off down the street.

I spent much of last weekend devouring Michael Palin’s diaries (boy, was I hungry (and now ashamed)), ploughing through over three hundred pages in two days (boy, was I farming (sorry, I’ll stop now)). The man has led a fascinating life and in the five years of diaries I got through covered some spectacular events, in both his life and in the world at large. I did become slightly disturbed at one point though. Palin’s thirtieth birthday. This occurred while he was in the middle of filming Monty Python and The Holy Grail. Which rather put my own existence into some sort of perspective. By the time he was thirty Palin already had all four series of Python behind him, a series about the history of Britain whose name escapes me, two series of Do Not Adjust Your Set and Christ knows how many sketches written for the various mid sixties satire shows. This seems incredible, especially with the current climate of British comedy. The last people under thirty I can think of who had their own vehicle commissioned would be Lee and Herring, and that was for radio – they must have been damned near to thirty before they got anywhere near a telly. Obviously the commissioning processes have changed a great deal since then, but it still disturbs me that in the same amount of time as I’ve been on this planet Palin had managed to knock out quite as much (mostly) excellent product. The thing that really sickens me though – Eric Idle was even younger. At least he’s a cunt now.

It’s occurred to me that the level of alcohol I have to consume to work up enough Dutch courage to attempt some sort of a move on a girl, is exactly the same amount of alcohol that would make any attempted pass by me about as attractive as having your face licked by a tramp.

Wow, no one’s really reading this at all at the moment. I was considering giving it up a few weeks ago, when hit rates were particularly low, but they hadn’t plummeted as far as they have now. I hope that the lack of updates is the cause of this. It leaves me with only one option, really. To pop on my contrary hat and bang out this old shite until I drive everyone away. Huzzah! Above you will find the posts that would’ve gone up earlier this week, if I’d had the time or sobriety to write ‘em. Hope you enjoyed ‘em.

Since my return from Wales, I’ve not entirely caught up on my internet reading. Work’s been quite hectic and as such I’ve not had my usual four hours of free internet time. This is unfortunate with, for example, my being hopelessly behind reading Eddie Campbell’s always fascinating blog. Conversely, it had meant close to a month passing without my obsessively reading everything posted in the ‘Comedy Chat’ forums of Jaded & Narked. I confess that I have dipped in every once in a while to have a gander at the odd thread, but no more than that.

The dilemma presented itself to me very early this morning. Deciding to see if anything interesting had gone on recently, I went to the forum page, only to discover it to be unviewable to non-members. Now I’ve been looking at this thing far too regularly for the past couple of years, but the past month without has been psychologically refreshing to me. I’ve occasionally considered joining in with the dialogues on there, but have never really been one for online discussions, so registering never really came up. I don’t really want to completely abandon reading what’s being said on there, so was happy to know that it was there over these past few weeks and that I had the self control to leave it alone (to some degree). But what will happen if I have to register just to see the ongoing soap opera? I fear that I’ll almost intantaneously descend back into reading the endlessly circular debates and over praise of The Goodies, only this time with the greater possibility of my joining in. On the other hand I could forget the whole thing and try to carry on my life without it. Though I didn’t get the chance to download those early Morris GLR programmes that went up recently, so I’ve a sneaking suspicion I know which it is to be . . .

Yesterday I was told that a friend of a friend was hosting a nineties theme night. This I can vaguely understand – it being well over half a decade since whichever turn of the millenium you subscribe to, nostalgia for a vaguely distant time is sort of understandable. It’s something I try to avoid in anything except in a properly archived fashion, but I shall allow others to participate with only the smallest amounts of bile expressed from my healthy man boobs. It did set me wondering about what people could possibly do in another ten years time. The thing is that as far as I can see the past seven and a half years have been lacking in any real individual identity. More to the point, they have seen too large an expansion in the identity of individuals that there have been far fewer explosions in collective movements. The absence of any era defining new musical movement in getting on for twenty years, for example, hasn’t led to an absence of good music, but it has led to the sludgy rehashings that pass for the more innovative moments in pop these days. Screw together some sixties psych, a couple of eighties synth chords, slap on some sort of house derived beat and perform with a punk attitude and watch as you sail to the top of whatever the hit parade has become in this day and age (what a lot of ‘and’s. I’ll have to watch that). Maybe it’s just my getting old and not really knowing what the kids are up to now, though I think that might in some way be down to there being more things for them to get up to than my old bones can comprehend anymore. So, do the early 2000s (I refuse to use the ‘N’ word) have an identity at all? I guess they probably do – I seem to recall being certain that there was no ‘look’ to the nineties, though I’ve rethought that after seeing too many endless repeats of Friends. Without the hindsight it’s hard to see the differences, plus half of my wardrobe’s almost a decade old, so my notice of any is infiniteisimal. And as we’re approaching the point where a new musical movement should be shifting into gear (‘67, ‘77, ‘87 – I’ve been through all this before, weren’t you paying attention?), it’s heartening to know that most of the kids are off their tits on MDMA. Well, it is to me anyway.